


The Carousel of Time

by GoodbyeBlueMonday



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Background Het, Background Slash, Bisexual Female Character, F/F, FMA Rarepair Week, Fix-It, Getting Together, Lesbian Character, Moving On, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-10
Updated: 2016-09-10
Packaged: 2018-08-14 05:32:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8000359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoodbyeBlueMonday/pseuds/GoodbyeBlueMonday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The seasons change, the world changes, and old loves pass away with them...to be replaced by new ones. Written for FMA Rare Pair Week, using the theme "Seasons."</p><p>Title comes from the Joni Mitchell song "Circle Game."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Autumn (Winry)

**Author's Note:**

> I don't tag background ships (so they don't clutter those ships' tags), but they include many not-so-rare pairs that I know draw a lot of strong feelings in the fandom! So, warning: Along with the main ShesWin story, there are references to past and/or one-sided EdWin, Royai, Royed and Hyuroi. One of the Roy ships might become canon later in the story, but it's both a spoiler and firmly in the background.

It was autumn when Ed and Al left for the other world. For Ed, the second time, for Al, the first. For both of them, the last, they thought, they said. Winry knew that the ache in her heart aside, she would have to learn to build her life without them. It was something she'd never quite found in the years after Ed's first disappearance, always holding out hope that he would reappear. Now, she truly had to let go—but it would take time. 

These things always took time.

She spent a lot of time thinking about it, wandering around Central in the weeks, and then months after. There was more business to be had here, especially with all the destruction the Thules had caused, but Winry also felt like she couldn't leave. She had to commit this place to memory, the last place where she'd ever see the boys she'd grown up with—and the one boy she fell in love with, if she was honest with herself. Winry haunted Central like a ghost, and wondered if she could only leave once she'd accepted the truth.

She lingered around the places that reminded her of other losses. She brought flowers to Brigadier General Hughes's grave, many times. Sometimes, she'd see Gracia, or she'd see the newly-reinstated Colonel Mustang. Winry never liked it when she saw Mustang. She'd forgiven him for his sins, that wasn't the problem, it was his attitude about current events. He was the only person gloomier than Winry, the only person less willing to let go. 

He'd tell Winry things about himself. He knew she loved Ed, Mustang said, because he loved him too. He would go on about all the people he'd loved, and how he'd lost them in one way or another. Hughes had died. He'd actually tried with the Lieutenant, but he couldn't really be the person she wanted or needed. He'd let her down. He let everyone down, constantly hurting people and losing them, but Winry shouldn't give up hope, she was young, she had so much to live for. She could, would, should find someone else. She was beautiful, and brilliant, and had her life ahead of her, while his was just behind him.

There was a time when Winry could put aside their personal history and be flattered that a man like Roy Mustang thought she was beautiful. But in his sad-sack state, a shadow of his former self, he wasn't so attractive anymore. And, she thought, he was still pretty young himself; how could someone just give up? She wondered what Lieutenant Hawkeye thought of all this. Mostly, though, the fact that someone like General Mustang would give up made Winry worry about herself. With enough time, would she be like him—pining away at a shadow, useless?

She said as much to Sciezka when she saw her. Sciezka was always in Central, now that she was a part of Amestris's fledgling Assembly. They met for lunch, walked to Hughes's grave together, wiled away hours in the library.

"You won't be like him," Sciezka said. "He won't be like him, forever, either. Humans are highly adaptable. I read that once; we can adapt to anything, psychologically. We get used to both good and bad fortune until it...it doesn't seem so good or bad anymore." She caught her breath. "It just takes time!"

She always related things to books, in a way that reminded Winry of, but was still different from Ed. Sciezka read books about all subjects, not just alchemy. She knew so much, and had solutions to everything.

But mostly, Sciezka did what Mustang couldn't, what Winry Rockbell most needed: She listened. And that made all the difference.

Before anyone else in Central, Winry sought Sciezka out.


	2. Winter (Sciezka)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winry starts to move on, and closer to her friend. Sciezka wonders what that means.

As the days grew shorter, and the temperatures colder, Winry and Sciezka continued to grow closer. Winry appeared to be adjusting more and more to her circumstances. She was smiling and laughing more, and talking about Ed and Al less.

Sciezka knew she was right; her memory didn't lie. She'd consulted the entire psychology section of the Central Library several times over. Sciezka had never been good at reading people naturally, so she needed the knowledge from books to do that for her.

She wished she had a book to tell her what to do about herself, though. Because she'd never known _what_ to do, or say, when Winry looked at her with her bright blue eyes, and shining yellow hair, glowing in the firelight of a cozy pub or Sciezka's living room, and asked her questions like this:

"Mustang says I shouldn't have trouble because I'm young and pretty. What do you think Sciezka? Do you think I'm really _that_ pretty?"

She turned away and laughed after that, like she wasn't expecting an answer. But Sciezka couldn't help but wonder what hers would be. I mean: yes, _yes_ she was, but—how could she ever tell Winry that?

Sciezka had known for a long time that she was gay. It first became clear when she started working for the military, and heard the other librarians gossiping about Colonel Mustang and other young male officers. Sciezka never knew what they saw in him that made them lose their minds. He had an aesthetically-pleasing face, to be sure, but enough to swoon over? And when she really thought about it, as she did with everything, Sciezka realized she'd never really understood the big deal about men anyway. They were so big, harsh and brutish. There was just something missing. 

Instead, she thought of prettier faces, dotted with make-up, and curvy bodies. She got weak-kneed around Lieutenant Hawkeye or Second Lieutenant Ross, imagining the soft curves under their uniforms. Sciezka heard a rumor around headquarters that Colonel Mustang wished the female uniforms included miniskirts and, after a brief moment of horror at the thought of having to wear them herself, Sciezka realized might not mind so much at the other female officers wearing them.

That's when it clicked. Women were nice, pretty, soft…men were just there. Too much. Too many things Sciezka didn't want. That could only mean one thing.

She never had had the chance to fall in love, of course. Sciezka had never had the chance to get closer to any other girls. Until Winry came along, and suddenly, she had a partner—for investigations, for adventures, for her deepest thoughts. They'd come together for a common purpose, and forged a bond. Now Sciezka finally had a real friend. 

Lonely people try to make the most use of their relationships. Sciezka had read that somewhere, too, in the psychology section. They can't just have friends and lovers; they wanted both, in the same place. So perhaps it was inevitable that Sciezka's eyes would notice the way the wind caught Winry's hair, how her smile lit up the room; her ears would notice how her voice grew higher and more excited, and out-of-breath, when Winry talked about automail. Sciezka's heart would call out to a kindred spirit and wonder what it might be like if Winry's called back. She wondered what Winry would _feel like_ to her fingertips. She wondered about _her_ curves under her mechanic's clothes.

Winry loved Ed, though. He was the other thing she'd talk about in that excited voice, her hopes that when he achieved his goals, then when he came back from the place he disappeared to, _when…_ he would return to Risembool and marry Winry. She surely didn't know how Sciezka felt about her, even after Sciezka told her she was a lesbian. But whenever Winry talked about Ed, it was like a wall around Sciezka's heart, reminding her _do not cross_. 

Then she was her shoulder to cry on when Ed left for good, along with his brother, most of the family Winry had ever known. She spun out her heartbreak for Sciezka to hear, and ever the good friend, she listened. She listened closely, and offered advice, like best friends should do, and it seemed to make Winry feel better. She sought Sciezka out even more than before, and gradually learned to talk again about things other than Ed.

Was Sciezka really such a good friend, though? She couldn't help the hope that grew in her heart, at the idea that she and Winry might finally have something more than friendship. Sciezka knew she was too awkward to look elsewhere, and do anything but hope against hope for her best friend. As Winry committed to, and then finally actually began to move on, could that mean…? 

No, Winry was still straight. Look at how she blushed when Mustang called her beautiful—the man who killed her parents, and even Winry wasn't blind to his charms. Not like Sciezka was. She was like the other girls, and all Sciezka could hope for was to be a good friend.

At least she was good at that. It got them through that lonely, cold winter, their first winter truly without the Elrics, who had reshaped both of their lives so completely.

Winry's had too many beers, and Sciezka walks her back to her flat. They crunch through the snow, and it's all Sciezka can do to keep Winry upright. She's enchanted by the falling snow, trying to catch the flakes on her tongue, and nearly falls in an ice patch.

Sciezka wonders if it's the first of many more winters to come.


End file.
